


The Quality of Mercy

by youngavengersbigbang



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Assisted Suicide, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-23
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 05:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngavengersbigbang/pseuds/youngavengersbigbang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m hallucinating,” Nate murmurs. His voice is a wreck of itself; <i>he</i> is a wreck of himself. God, what must she see when she looks at him? “Or I’m going insane. But I guess that was pretty inevitable anyway, wasn’t it?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Quality of Mercy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carliscrazy](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Carliscrazy).



> **Warnings:** "Assisted suicide" in the tags pretty much covers it.

“The quality of mercy is not strain'd,  
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven  
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;  
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”  
— **The Merchant of Venice** , William Shakespeare

++

He’s in the hospital, trapped in his ruined body. He’s lost in the tangle of wires and tubes that keep him alive, and he hates everyone. He knows he shouldn’t. He knows exactly where this leads. Kang _showed_ him all the steps of this dance; it was the main reason he’d escaped into the timestream to begin with. To find _help_.

_And look how well that turned out for you._

He turns his face away, squeezing his eyes shut against the hot burn of rage. It comes and goes, like the tide. He’s half convinced it’s going to wash him out to sea no matter how hard he fights. The feeling of betrayal doesn’t leave him now—it only surges and recedes depending on the day, the hour, sometimes the _minute_ , steady and dependable and inescapable. It’d be so easy to just relax back and let it have him.

_What’s the point of fighting anyway? Isn’t that why they sent you back here? To get hurt, to suffer, to make them pay?_

_Good going, Cap._ He blinks up at the ceiling, tears hot on his lashes. _Your master plan is working like a charm._

Machines drone in a steady beat that marks out the seconds. Every shift of his muscles is agony, pain radiating from the bright-hot scar where the hoverboard sliced through skin and sinew, all the way down to bone. He feels it when he breathes, body pulling tight against the line bisecting him like any moment he could come ripping apart at the seams. Laying here, he feels like a fetal pig pinned to a dissection tray. He feels ( _trapped, helpless, bitterness like bile in his throat_ ) like a _sacrifice_.

_Fuck you anyway_ , Nate thinks viciously. He jerks his chin, struggling against the sear of pain; the machines begin to bleat in protest, steady hum rising into a screech as he jerks against the weakness holding him in place.

And then he turns his head, and he sees Cassie.

++

She is beautiful. She is terrible. She _hurts_ to look at, radiant in a way no human should be, like blinking up to stare defiantly into the sun. When he cuts his gaze away quickly, there are black dots swimming before his eyes.

The sound of feathers ( _wings; wings, what the hell, Cassie_ ) settling is loud; almost as loud as his breath as it grates through the ruin of his body, and oh fuck, she can’t be here.

He’s going mad.

++ 

He thinks: _If I pretend I can’t see her, maybe she’ll go away._

Nate stares blankly up at the ceiling, refusing to acknowledge the girl he’d so briefly loved. The room is too bright, but he can rationalize that away. The air feels warmer, but that could just be the blood rushing through his limbs, the shock of— Of— Of that _dream_ , that _waking dream_. It’s nothing. It’s unimportant.

But then soft fingers close over his wrist and Nate fights not to jerk away; his entire body is a fist and he feels like his heart is going to pound through the barely healed gash bisecting his body and and and

and her skin is so _warm._

He whines deep in his throat when delicate fingers brush his jaw. He can’t fight the gentle pressure, head turning at her insistence.

_Cassie._

++

The light has dimmed enough to allow him to look now, but she’s still brighter than her surroundings; pale skin throws off waves of light, and it’s as if every strand of her hair is reflecting back sunlight in a dazzling spill of gold. The way she’s looking at him—sad and angry at once—makes his stomach clench, and he wants to reach up to touch her almost as much as he wants to deny the reality of her.

“I’m hallucinating,” Nate murmurs. His voice is a wreck of itself; _he_ is a wreck of himself. God, what must she see when she looks at him? “Or I’m going insane. But I guess that was pretty inevitable anyway, wasn’t it?”

Her lips pull into a familiar frown. She looks older, he realizes. Not by much—maybe a few years, at most, but he can see the effects of time on her, even amongst the dazzle of her new form. Her cheeks aren’t as full as they once were and her body has more muscle. Her eyes look _ancient_ as she watches him from beneath her lashes.

She’s changed. But he’s changed too. And suddenly, there’s nothing he wants more than for this to be real.

“Please,” Nate says, fumbling to grasp her hand. It’s still so hard to move; his muscles scream in protest, and the machines blare a warning. She glances up, wings ( _wings!_ ) rustling, and the steady metallic drone goes silent for the first time in weeks. He barely lets himself notice, fingers fumbling against hers. He’s trembling, though he couldn’t say why. Adrenaline? Hope? Maybe he really is mad. Maybe this is how Kang starts after all—maybe she’ll disappear the moment he thinks he’s going to be saved, and that disappointment will finally drown Nate Richards for good. “Cassie, I don’t want— _Please_ , I—”

“Shh.”

Her voice is hers, and yet it isn’t. It’s slightly deeper, slightly older, and a thousand times sadder than the Cassie he remembers. She strokes her fingertips up into his hair, thumb brushing over his temple. There are tears on her lashes. He can’t stand that the sight of him brought her to tears. “You killed Jonas,” she murmurs.

Wait. What?

Nate tries to sit up— _wants_ to—but he doesn’t have the strength to do more that twist against the bedclothes. It feels as if fingers have dug into his chest and are prying apart the shell of his ribs where the skin pulls hot and tight against his scar. “Fuck, I… _Who_?”

Her eyes drop. She lets go of him. “I guess it doesn’t matter yet, does it?”

“I don’t,” he begins, not _understanding_ , then, “Please don’t go.” Cassie meets his eyes again. Tears roll down her familiar-yet-not face, leaving darker tracks against incandescent skin. They’re going to break his heart. “I don’t know if I’m hallucinating you or what, but please. _Please_ don’t leave me. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be this. I shouldn’t have come back, and I just, it’s not _fair_ and…”

Nate trails off when she leans in to cup his face. Her grip is gentle, but her expression is fierce. “You killed Jonas,” she says. “Not Kang; _you_. I saw it when I died.”

“ _Cassie_.”

“I came here to make you pay for that.”

“ _Cassie_.”

Her thumbs move over his skin almost delicately. Her eyes are so big, so achingly familiar, so _desperately wanted_ , that they fill his whole world. There is nothing else—no hospital bed, no ruined body, no future stretching long and dark and hopeless in front of him.

Just her. Just this.

Her thumbs brush away his bitter tears. “Shh,” she murmurs, “it’s okay. Nate, it’s okay. You’re not him yet. I’m going to save you. It doesn’t have to happen that way.”

“The timestream,” he begins, voice choking, but she is already tugging the pillow from beneath his head. Her wide, white wings rustle, blocking out the overhead lights. Golden hair spills around his face, coiling ends brushing his cheeks. It feels so good to be touched.

Cassie almost smiles. “They’ll figure it out,” she promises. “It’s what they do. We’re just kids, Nate. We shouldn’t have to suffer for them. _You_ shouldn’t. I’m going to help you.” Cassie holds the pillow between her hands; her expression is earnest, as serious as he’d ever seen it. “If that’s what you want.”

Is it? God, his mind is racing. He’d _seen_ what happened when he didn’t become Kang—it was why he’d come back here in the first place, why he let this happen to him. But what if she was right? What if it didn’t have to be that way?

“I killed…Jonas?” He tries out the name, uncertain. “Do I— Cassie, do I kill you?”

“Does it matter?” she asks gently.

_Yes_. “I suppose not.” Nate wets his lips, looking up into her eyes. _I’m probably hallucinating_ , he reminds himself. _This isn’t real_. 

_That doesn’t matter._

“Do it,” he says, beginning to smile, letting himself believe. “Okay, yeah, let’s do it. Let’s get out of here.”

“It’ll hurt for a minute,” Cassie warns, pillow hovering over his face. 

Nate just snorts. “It’s been hurting a lot longer than that. Go on: I trust you.”

Cassie sucks in a soft breath, as if steeling herself, then brings the pillow over his face. The last thing Nate sees before smothering darkness is the spill of gold over her shoulders and somber mercy in endless blue eyes.

++

She’s right; it only hurts for a minute.


End file.
